Talk:List of surviving veterans of World War I/Archive 1

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Merge to WWI

Support
  • ok. User:ACW 23:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose

New claim?

I found this and the gentleman is still around aged 107 and it says that he served in the Merchant Navy when he left school so assuming he left school at 16, or even 18, my thought are he sould be considered an Era-veteran, any thoughts? http://www.salfordadvertiser.co.uk/news/s/1024540_spritely_henry_is_105_years_young

Articles on individual surviving veterans

Are these articles necessary, given that they don't seem to contain much biographical information? Kansan (talk) 00:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Centenariens

i have been researching living people who were born between 1900 to 1903 and i have found two people called Frederica Sagor Maas and Hugues Cuénod, so far i have not found any infomation that they served during the war but if anyone has any information could they send a link to this page. thank you.--A.C.W 19:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

ENWP

This article has more people in it than the English Wikipedia version; which is both worrying (in the assumption that English Wikipedia is kept up to date more often, and is more likely to be correct over these sort of things [being a wiki large enough to have many revisions]) and pleasing (that we pwn enwp lol). It would be nice to have a recent (2010) source listing the veterans as still, er, being alive. — μ 18:01, Sunday February 21 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to be looking at this next week. I think that some of these we discounted over there, but I will look at this list and prune as required.

Unverified veterans

if anyone can prove if the unverified served or not could they send a link to this section. Thank you.--A.C.W 20:35, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Claimed LIVING 110 yr old WWI vet!

Kashi Ram Rai claimed to have celebrated his 110th birthday on January 1, 2010. He was born in Nepal, and moved to Manchester, New Hampshire. Coincidentally where 114-year-old Mary Josephine Ray had resided prior to her departure from life, sadly. He had been in a British/India Gurkha regiment sent to France and had fought there in the war, returning home to Nepal in 1920. He emigrated to Bhutan in 1928.

I found SOMEONE named Ram Rai who had enlisted in the British Army during World War I on Ancestry.com here (scroll near bottom of page till u come across a Ram Rai): [1] Now, call it what you want, but it seems somewhat believable.


Other Sources:

--A.C.W 19:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

There's no actual verification here, just assertion (mostly self-assertion). Therefore he should not be included on the page. Burbridge92 (talk) 13:01, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This Page Requires Substantial Revision

Unfortunately this page appears to be partially unreferenced and inaccurate in a number of respects:

Doug Terrey: As much as you may want him to be, Doug Terrey is NOT a verified WWI veteran. Discussion of his case is in the archives of the English Wikipedia version of this page and shows that no official record of his service exists, the World War One Veterans' Association has been unable to verify it, and the British Army itself is sceptical of his claim.

Nasir Al-Hajry: This is clearly no more than one of those fanciful claims of extreme old age that appear from time-to-time that no-one really takes seriously. Its inclusion devalues the article.

Philibert Parnasse: Please provide the reference to his being called up. Many of the articles I have found online refer to him 'échappé à la guerre' - escaping the war! Also, he lives in Guadeloupe in the French Caribbean, not in France. Mathieu Frederic (his website Derdesders here [2]), who is considered to be the authority on French WWI veterans, makes no mention of him.

Erich Berger: Please provide the references that 'link' him to WWI.

Giovanni Ligato: None of the online articles on him that I have found make any mention of war service. Please provide the references that show that 'people believe he is the last living Italian World War I veteran alive (sic).' Most people believe that the last living Italian World War I veteran was Delfino Borrini, who died on 26th October 2008.

Kashi Ram Rai: Please refer to the discussion on the English Wikipedia version of this page.

on this article the rules are not like how they are on this list of surviving veterans, on this article we dont only add claims if they have been in the press we add a claim if someone claims it on any form of article like how kashi ram rai did.--A.C.W 18:01, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

That's poor logic, as that means anyone can claim to be a veteran and included on this page. However if you're going to do that you need to include all unverified veterans, of which there are multiple. You cannot include Kashi Ram Rai without including the likes of Andy Rasch and the others aswell. Burbridge92 (talk) 12:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Henry Johnson: The reference here is over two years old. Is there any more recent evidence that Mr Johnson is actually still with us?

Your efforts in tracking these individuals down are commendable but just because they are old enough to have served at the very end of WWI does not make them veterans. In Britain c.50% of the male population of military age between 1914-1918 did not serve in the armed forces, either because they were rejected as unfit or, like my great-grandfather, were in 'reserved occupations' (ie exempt from military service) such as farming, munitions, shipbuilding, the railways or coal mining, which were vital in maintaining the war effort.

The English Wikipedia version of this page has been going for over four years and the regular contributors (usually) have the collective wisdom to establish if a new claim is valid or whether it is a case of clutching at straws, and reference to the archives will reveal the often protracted debates that have gone on in the past. Sadly, it is unlikely that any further survivors will emerge at this late stage. As the number of veterans has dwindled so the media interest in them has increased, and it is highly probable that if any living 108, 109 and 110 year olds had a material connection to WWI it would have been reported in detail already.

The above points are meant with good intent and I hope that they are helpful. The reputation of Wikipedia rests on the validity of its contents.Brucexyz (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you entirely, Florence Green and Jozef Kowalski should be the only two veterans mentioned on this page. However, if consensus is going to take pride of place over commonsense, all claimant veterans should be included on the page. Burbridge92 (talk) 12:59, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Douglas Edward Terrey deceased

Douglas Edward (Doug) Terrey is deceased as of 26 June 2010, three days after his 107th birthday. The death notice from a local newspaper, 'Daily Echo', is as follows:

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/announcements/bmdsarch/8244725.TERREY_DOUGLAS___/

Important note regarding the listed veterans:

This topic is similar to what is said in the topic: This Page Requires Substantial Revision

There are several issues with the page as it stands at the moment.

1. The table needs to be separated into appropriate tables for the different veterans. The title at the top of the table is "World War I veterans", which suggests that all of the veterans are WWI veterans and that they are all confirmed, neither of which is true. Jozef Kowalski and Alexander Imich are both listed, although both are labeled as veterans of the Polish-Soviet war. These two should go in a table under the title "World War I-era veterans". As for Kashi Ram Rai, he is unconfirmed as a veteran of the first world war, so if he is to be mentioned he should be listed as an unconfirmed veteran in a separate table, as Florence Green is the sole confirmed surviving veteran of the first world war and is the only one who meets the criteria of the table.

2. There's a problem with including Kashi Ram Rai and Alexander Imich on the page, and that is that they are not the only unconfirmed veterans of the first world war and wars of that era that are still living. An example of another one is Andrew Rasch, who claimed to fight for American armed forces during the first world war. If we are going to include Ram Rai and Imich on the basis that they COULD have fought in the war, we should also include all other claimants, of which there are several. This makes things complicated as they are hard to keep track of, but should be given the same treatment as Ram Rai and Imich.

3. I've been researching all of the individuals mentioned on the page recently and found that, with the exception of Florence Green, there is no recent news articles which reference any of the individuals mentioned on this page. Any of those that there is a lack of information about could have passed away by now (with the exception perhaps of Alexander Imich who is a minor celebrity). This means that we cannot be sure if the table is correct. If anyone knows of any recent information on any of them, feel free to source it, as it will be vital to the validity of the page.Burbridge92 (talk) 23:21, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additional to my previous comments, it must be said that if the page is to stay the same, and in doing so continue to include the unverified WWI and WWI-era veterans, then ALL of said veterans should be included. We can't just pick and choose which unverified veterans we want to include. If the likes of Kashi Ram Rai are to be included then so must the likes of Andy Rasch, we have no evidence for or against either being involved in the war, but it's wrong to assume that and the other wasn't on this page. Equal treatment must be given to all unverified veterans, either they all go or they all stay. Burbridge92 (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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